More than that: things are shoddily designed because they involve no designer: the shoddiness in question can itself be explained by the evolutionary paths that each shoddily designed thing took to get there; the eye is the half-crappy invention that it is because it started out as just a hole in membrane which gradually developed over time, with each step of that development constrained by the step before it. The brain is as shittily put together as it is because you can trace the way in which it began as a crude sensori-motor integration system only to have a whole bunch of other modules tacked on to it over time, in concert with the evolutionary pressures that shaped those tacking-ons (pressures that themselves can be tracked).

Design is not just a bad explanation - although it is that - it is also an explanation which would run counter to how things are actually put together. It's such a bad explanation that you'd more or less have to change the facts to fit it. Perhaps it could be called an anti-explanation.

Among the first implications of intelligent design is just how unintelligent any such designer would be. One of the first things you learn when you study evolutionary biology is just how slapdash and thrown together most biological systems are; the most obvious example being the eye, which, despite it being taken as an exemplar of design, is in fact a functionally poor peice of equipment. Or else there's the fact that the human mind is basically a whole bunch of different systems cobbled together in way so inelegant that we're beset by all sort of mental illnesses and defects in judgement as a result. Otherwise, there's the well known example of the panda's thumb [pdf] - another kludge - which S. J. Gould wrote so lovingly about.

Evolutionary history is full of haphazard, jury-rigged contraptions which bear the mark of their contingent, bottom-up developmental paths which any 'designer' would balk at on account of their utter inelegance - unintelligent design. The first question one would put to any 'intelligent designer' is 'what the fuck is wrong with you?'.

Andreas Wagner - Arrival of the Fittest: How Nature Innovates
Ernest Cline - Ready Player One (first fiction book in... months)

So I see you're not really asking a question. Perhaps you should have titled your thread 'I made up my mind that the gender pay gap is a myth, and would like people to agree with me. And if you disagree, why should I believe you? (even if you cite official government statistics?)'.

Ah yes, the use of numbers, how nefarious. Next they'll be doing studies and collecting evidence. The nerve.

But I should add that, though logic isn't fundamental to Reality, it's fundamental to metaphysical-reality, and is what what-metaphysically-is is constructed of. — Michael Ossipoff

Word salad.

It's true that - as @Wayfarer says - the ancient philosophical conception of Logos was that which was expressed by the universe in its unfolding, but it's also the case that those who invoke a 'universe governed by logic' are more often than not not referring to any such conception, and have no idea what they think they are talking about.

Whaddya think? Sway you on UBI any?

Gosh it's like someome here has never read Hume before.

Well according to Pierce, English stands in a triadic relation to symmetry, so therefore the epistemic cut that Pattee speaks of means that you need to dichotomize it with Chinese, so it is put into a limit relation with another language. Then, you need to consider the fact that firstness stands in a symbolic relation to secondness, which makes the whole thing a question of pragmatism. After that, it's just habit all the way down, which places a constraint on what kind of language you're speaking. So finally, it's just a question of modeling the vagueness of the proposition 'is it true that this thread is in English?', so that you really bring out its biosemiotic dimension, and demonstrate its informational nature, especially with respect to its onticness.

Simple really.

A source mentioned before.

http://www.nybooks.com/topics/on-consciousness/ — Banno

Super interesting interview. I do wish these people would drop the outdated 'inside/outside' / 'internalist/externalist' vocabulary though. The distinction - when taken in the absolute - is not helpful, and the more philosophically astute move would be to show how they are largely misleading when thinking about thought. As tends to be the case, these people are rehashing - in a more neuroscientific key - findings that phenomenologists have established for half a century or more now. *sigh*

Damn straight.

Can you two children please knock it off. You're embarrassments to yourselves. If you've nothing of philosophical relevance to say, say nothing.

What are you referring to when you say the axioms of logic? — MonfortS26

These for example:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zermelo%E2%80%93Fraenkel_set_theory#Axioms

The scientific method is the cycle of these three forms of reasoning according to Charles Sanders Peirce and it seems to me that is an accurate statement. — MonfortS26

Without commenting on Peirce, what's missing in this characterization of the scientific method is the minimal condition of what the philosopher of science Ian Hacking calls intervening. Science acheives its results by intervening in the world somehow, by making a change in things. Science works by encountering - and overcoming - worldy resistance, intransigence: such are scientific experiments. No such intervention is required by logic, which can freely float above world in perpetuity without in the least encountering any worldy resistence.

Pure science - science without reference to the empirical - is an oxymoron, so I don't think it's appropriate to say logic is pure science, and science has a specificity to it that exceeds anything in logic so I don't think it's appropriate to call science applied logic. Basically I think you're trying to make more hay than can be done with regard to any connection between science and logic. My suggestion is to look further into what logic is: it's a formal discipline that has alot of specificity to it, and I think your'e in for a hard time trying to discuss anything sensibly if you're aren't familiar with even the actual axioms of logic themselves, when that's what you're trying to talk about! I don't mean this harshly, but only as a suggestion for study.

I think what you're missing is the specificity of logic: logic is a very specific thing, a bunch of formal rules for making inferences (modern logic anyway). One can establish a system of logic without a single reference to any real life constraint, or scientific result. You can literally make the rules up from thin air as you go along, which is kind of what logicians have mostly done, although some have at least tried to make it amenable to math. Logic is more or less entirely disconnected from the empirical: that's exactly its strength.

But no scientific method establishes, say, the axiom of extentionality:



Nor the axiom of the power set:



Nor any of the others in ZFC. Nor could one imagine how any scientific investigation even could, in principle, establish any of these axioms. One suspects that the very vocabulary here is wrong, that there is a mistake of grammar at work.

Let's not forget: logic is just a formalisation of rules for inference making. There are multiple logics, not all of which are compatible with each other, depending on what it is you'd like to do. It's just a series of games, like chess and checkers: it simply makes very little sense - it's not even wrong - to speak of the scientific method in establishing the rules for those games - likewise logic.

Perhaps you mean to speak of something other than logic.

Mmm, it's literally preaching to the converted, in the phrase's full, non-metaphoric sense.

Yep. That's the basic conceit of all 'ontological arguments for God': they build God's existence in from the beginning then pretend to extrapolate it at the end. But its a rort. The existence in question is a wholly modal one (remaining at the plane of possibility). The 'argument' may as well read:

There exists a being, such that, it exists.
Therefore, it exists.

The greatest being must exist... if the greatest being exists. But the argument doesn't establish this if.

Byung-Chul Han - The Agony of Eros
Byung-Chul Han - Shanzhai: Deconstruction in Chinese

A low period at work, so I'm tearing though some shorter works.

"It was of no small importance for a painter’s career in China to get a forgery of an Old Master into the collection of a well-known connoisseur. He who succeeds in such a forgery of a master’s work gains great recognition, as it provides proof of his ability. For the connoisseur who authenticated his forgery, the forger is equal to the master. Even Chang Dai-chien, one of the best-known Chinese painters of the twentieth century, got his breakthrough when a famous collector exchanged an original by an Old Master for his forgery. ... . As we know, even Michelangelo was a forger of genius. He was, as it were, one of the last Chinese of the Renaissance. Like many Chinese painters he created perfect copies of borrowed pictures and gave them back instead of the originals".

Also: "In the Chinese literary world today we can see a similar process. If a novel is very successful, fakes immediately appear. They are not always inferior imitations that simulate a nonexistent proximity to the original. Alongside the obvious fraudulent labeling, there are also fakes that transform the original by embedding it in a new context or giving it a surprising twist. Their creativity is based on active transformation and variation. Even the success of Harry Potter initiated this dynamic. There now exist numerous Harry Potter fakes that perpetuate and transform the original. Harry Potter and the Porcelain Doll, for instance, makes the story Chinese. Together with his Chinese friends Long and Xing, Harry Potter defeats his Eastern adversary Yandomort, the Chinese equivalent of Voldemort, on the sacred mountain of Taishan. Harry Potter can speak fluent Chinese, but has trouble eating with chopsticks, and so on."

Byung-Chul Han, Shanzhai: Deconstruction in Chinese

--

"Theory in the strong sense of the word is a phenomenon of negativity. It makes a decision determining what belongs and what does not. As a mode of highly selective narration, it draws a line of distinction. On the basis of such negativity, theory is violent. Without the negativity of distinction, matters proliferate and grow promiscuously. In this respect, theory borders on the ceremonial, which separates the initiated and the uninitiated. It is mistaken to assume that the mass of positive data and information — which is assuming untold dimensions today — has made theory superfluous, that is, that comparing data can replace the use of models.

Theory, as negativity, occupies a position anterior to positive data and information. Data-based positive science does not represent the cause so much as the effect of the imminent end of theory, properly speaking. It is not possible to replace theory with positive science. The latter lacks the negativity of decision, which determines what is, or what must be, in the first place. Theory as negativity makes reality itself appear ever and radically different; it presents reality in another light".

Byung-Chul Han, The Transparency Society

"The revelation of an aesthetic mechanism for the evolution of female sexual anatomy in waterfowl is a profoundly feminist scientific discovery. It is not feminist by accommodating the science to any contemporary political theory or ideology. Rather, it is a feminist discovery in that it demonstrates that sexual autonomy matters in nature. Sexual autonomy is not merely a political idea, a legal concept, or a philosophical theory; rather, it is a natural consequence of the evolutionary interactions of sexual reproduction, mating preferences, and sexual coercion and violence in social species. And the engine of sexual autonomy is aesthetic mate choice. Only by acknowledging that these are real forces in nature can we make progress toward a complete understanding of the natural world".

Richard O. Prum - The Evolution of Beauty

Huh. The more you know.

In the Categories list on the left, when you're in the thread, the category will be bolded. You can't see what category a thread is in until you're in the actual thread itself, as far as I know.

Richard Prum - The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World - And Us
Jakob von Uexküll - A Foray Into the Worlds of Animals and Humans: With A Theory of Meaning
Miguel Sicart - Play Matters

Like literally every 'ontological argument for God' ever, the OP assumes its conclusion. All the argument can show - all every such ontological argument can show - is that if God existed, the argument would hold true. Here is the slight of hand:

If god existed only in our imaginations, he wouldn't be the greatest thing that we can think of, because God in reality would be greater. Therefore, God must exist in reality! — Harjas

Notice the material conditional, 'if'. The passage should read: 'If God existed only in our imaginations, he wouldn't be the greatest thing we can think of, because, if he existed, God in reality would be greater. Therefore, if God existed, God would exist in reality".

Every 'ontological argument for God' engages in this slight of hand: beginning with a material conditional and then silently dropping it along the way. Once you know to look out for it, its kinda fun to play the 'spot the illicit shift from conditioned to unconditioned (from 'if' to 'existence') in all 'ontological arguments'. The OP's phrasing, 'God in reality would be greater', actually retains the conditional lanaguge even as it pretends not to notice it.

It's an argument that is broken at the very level of its form, let alone any of its content. Moreover, this is an issue that's been well known since Kant, and it's completely ludicrous that the argument is still trotted out as often as it is. Its been a sham of an argument since Anselem, it remains a sham now.

A reason in the logical sense — TheMadFool

And to reason is to make inferences. It the height of silliness to think animals cannot make inferences or pose inferential questions.

And your 'seven questions' are an arbitrary garb-bag drawn from two seconds of thought. They are in no way comparable to the dimensional issue, which is, by contrast a well posed question.

Give me one example of an animal asking the question ''why?'' — TheMadFool

Tell me what you understand to be at stake when a 'why?' question is posed. What kind of answer is being sought after, in your opinion?

I'm looking for constructive criticism. Something that'll throw some light into matter. — TheMadFool

It's not clear what 'matter' you're trying to throw light upon.

I've never seen an animal ask ''why?'' — TheMadFool

Then you haven't looked hard enough.

Help me phrase it better. — TheMadFool

It's your question.

However, you can't deny that questions like ''who?'' and ''why?'' require some level of understanding of self, identity or rationality. — TheMadFool

Phrased as vaguely as that, one could deny or affirm a great deal without it having any iota of significance.

Surely animals don't ask ''why?'' or ''who?'' My views are based on such clues as that. — TheMadFool

You need to read up on the intelligence of animals.

I don't know why s/he said — TheMadFool

I explained why, I suggest you go back and read.

Oh yeah that reminds me: it's utterly irrelevant that 'how many?' is two words and the other questions listed are one word. The number of words is utterly arbitrary and reflects nothing other than local anthropological quirks. 'How many?' is it's own question and there's no use being silly about the number of words involved.

Have you seen the Kurzgesagt primer on it? (I love this channel). It mentions that aspect of it as well:



There's also Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams' argument for it in their Inventing the Future, and you can check out their talk here:

Why are conservatives so opposed to it despite the economic argument that could be made in its favor? — Posty McPostface

Yeah, as Michael's quote captures, it's this idea of 'self-reliance' that is seen undermined by initiatives like UBI; the question of 'dependency' and the apparent correlative danger to 'freedom' is also one of the big motivators against it. I'd say that such arguments trade on incredibly thin and entirely unrealistic conceptions of freedom and individuality, but that's the general tenor of the argument against it, I think. Hannah Arendt once argued that freedom began where the concern with the necessities of life ended - a UBI would be a nice step on the way to securing something like an Arendtian freedom, which I find incredibly attractive.

The biggest danger with UBI I think isn't the idea itself: it's the fact that it can be leaned upon as a excuse to shut down other areas of public investment, and perhaps act as a spur to unnecessary privatization as well. While I do think any UBI should be leveraged to cut down on other social security initiatives, any such trade-off would need to be carefully calculated and weighed against specific circumstances. The worry is that UBI will be used as an excuse for what would amount to a public firesale. That would be awful.

One of the best cases for UI I know is in Rutger Bergman's Utopia for Realists, where he looks not only at the theoretical benefits but delves into the actual case studies of where UBI has been tried and tested, with almost universally positive results. The idea is precisely that people generally tend to use it for necessities: rent, utilities, and food; And that once they stop struggling to meet the bare minimum for survival, they trend is towards far more economic productivity, all across the board: people actually have the time to pursue entrepreneurial goals, or else invest time into study and upskilling, and so on. I'm still not 100% sold on the idea, personally - UBI would need to be one mechanism implemented in line with others in a wide-ranging social policy, but I can definitely see its positives. In any case, I'd really suggest reading the Bergman book.

But ''where?'' can be reduced to ''what is the location?'' It doesn't work the other way does it? — TheMadFool

Sure, you can change anything into a 'what' question if you play around with words enough, but you lose the specificity of the first-personness or the dexical/perspectival aspect of the initial 'where' question. In other words, you lose something in the translation: the 'reduction' reduces the question to a shell of what it was. You lose specificity for the sake of generality: but this latter is abstract and lifeless.

With respect to naming, Wittgenstein was among those who adequately demonstrated that naming is a tiny subset of all the things that we do with language, and is an awful model to base any philosophy of language upon. Nomination is among the most abstract things we do with language, with the major heavy-lifting borne instead by the indication of relations.

An interesting excercise. Have to agree with Charleton though that 'where?' easily stands as the prima interrogazione, and for the same reasons: where food? where safety? where predator? - are all far more pressing than the overly intellectualized 'what?' question. Another interesting facet of the 'where?' question is that it is thoroughly 'deixical' or perspectival: it always refers to the time and space of the speaker - where in relation to me?, or, where in relation to the tribe? It is a question in the first or second person, and not in the third.

And speaking of space and time, 'where'? also unsettles the question of priority more generally, insofar as 'where?' can be understood both spatially and temporally - where in space? where in time? Which in turn implicates a whole slew of others: which direction? How soon will I get there/when will they arrive? There's a real sense in which all yhese questions are co-implicated in each other and cannot be artificially teased apart. In fact, there's an argument to be made (in fact it has been made, and I agree with it!) that the question of 'what?' is the least substantial of all the basic questions, insofar as it is the most removed from the first person and thus the most divorced from the reality of life - an unfortunate state of affiars because 'what?' questions have been taken to define the direction of philosophy since Plato. Deleuze:

"The [Platonic] Idea, the discovery of the Idea, is inseparable from a certain type of question. The Idea is in the first place an “objecticity [objectité] which, as such, corresponds to a way of posing questions. It only responds to the call of certain questions. It is in Platonism that the question of the Idea is determined under the form: What is...? This noble question is supposed to concern the essence, and is opposed to vulgar questions which only refer to the example or the accident. Thus you do not ask who is beautiful, but what is the Beautiful. Not where and when there is justice, but what is the Just. Not how “two” is obtained, but what is the dyad. Not how much, but what... All of Platonism thus seems to oppose a major question, always taken up again and repeated by Socrates as that of the essence or the Idea, to minor questions of opinion which only express confused ways of thinking, whether in old men or awkward children, or in sophists and over-skilful orators." (Deleuze, The Method of Dramatization).

Deleuze's suggestion of course is that we overturn entirely the priority of the 'what?' question, which has more or less debilitated philosophy for 2000 years. I think he's basically right about this.

I'd say that there's always something additive about what are called virtuous cycles: the move from A to B to A again 'adds' something to A, or sustains it in a way. Whereas vicious cycles would not have this additive element: every iteration of the cycle lands you back at the beginning, without any 'increase' along any particular dimension. Conceptually, the key difference here is temporal asymmetry: strictly speaking, vicious cycles have no 'time', they are temporally neuter, purely 'logical', whereas virtuous cycles always have a forward temporal momentum to them.

An example: in democratic theory, there's sometimes what's referred to as the democratic paradox - the idea that you can't have a democracy without a citizenry trained in democratic values, but you can't cultivate a democratically educated citizenry without a democracy. The 'solution' to this paradox that is generally given is that democracies are not 'binary' values: democracy is always something that is being worked upon and worked out, that democracies are always in the process of their own establishment, which is never given or completed once and for all.

Another element that might be relevant is the gestalt nature of virtuous cycles: they come packaged as a 'whole', as a 'form' with a function. To use another example drawn from somewhere else entirely: creationists often used to argue that the eye was an example of 'irreducible complexity': every part of the eye, taken together, is necessary for the eye to work, so the eye could not have evolved in a piecemeal fashion, as biology would have it. The argument here is of a vicious kind: for any part of the eye to have evolved, it would have had to rely on another part, without which it could not have evolved, and vice versa.

The common response to that argument is that the eye was always a 'whole' from the very beginning, that it evolved as a unit to begin with, and not as bits added to other bits over time (early eyes were - and remain in some cases - simple light receptors that can only pick out vague differences in darkness and lightness for example, which might have helped a marine animal gauge how far it might be from the water's surface or something like that). The lesson being that vicious cycles rely on part-to-part thinking, while virtuous cycles are always part-to-whole-and-back-again thinking. Another relevant example of a virtuous cycle is something like the hermenutic cricle, which I won't go into, but is worth reading about, insofar as it exhibits both the part-whole nature of virtuous cycles and their temporality.

Perhaps we can say: virtuous cycles are always bound to 'real life': they are never purely formal-logical.

Giorgio Agamben - Taste
Giorgio Agamben - What Is Philosophy?